Dogs Trust High Pressure Selling

An email I have just sent to the Dogs Trust and Tesco.... Those kind of people boil my blood! Hopefully it's a one off rogue employee, not a widely used sales tactic. I'll post up the reply if I get one.

Dear Sirs

I have just returned from by local Tesco store at Kettering Business Park (3pm 10th Nov 11) and have felt strongly enough to write and complain to you.

Upon returning to my motorbike parked near the door, whist packing my shopping onto the motorbike and dressing into my motorbike gear, I was unfortunate enough to overhear a conversation between a Dogs Trust salesperson and an elderly lady.

The lady was clearly becoming quite uncomfortable with the high pressure that she was being put under to sign up to a monthly direct debit. Having told the seller three times that she already held direct debits for other charities and did not want another, I felt the need to intervene and firmly advise the seller that she clearly was not interested. He ignored me and continued until she had repeated this another two times. Aware that I was about in intervene again, he finally let her go on with her business.

I work in sales myself, but the practice of preying upon and trapping a vulnerable person, who is clearly too intimidated and polite to simply say 'No' and walk away, into a sales pitch and applying pressure in this manner I find very distasteful. These salespeople are in my opinion of no higher moral standing than those who neglect and abuse the dogs that Dogs Trust aim to assist.

Please can Dogs Trust reply within the next 5 days, advising what measures they are taking to ensure their sellers do not operate using high pressure selling techniques, and to ensure that sellers will graciously accept no for an answer.

Please can Tesco reply within the next 5 days, advising what measures they are taking to ensure that it's elderly customers will not be preyed upon and pressurised in this manner, when shopping at their stores.

Yours Faithfully

[Biker Biggles]

Quite right
I think this kind of sharp practice should be made illegal
Unsolicited selling and charity approaches should all be under much tighter control

[Dave20046]

St John's ambulance do the same, text them for a free first aid guide it never arrived but I did get an phone call from a persistant tw@ while I was making my tea. Went on and on despite being told in no uncertain terms I wouldn't be donating over the phone. Feel sorry for the OAPs he gets.

Although not face to face so not quite as bad.

Some of them are so dumb you even have to explain "F*** O**"I SIMPLE REFUSE TO GIVE TO ANY CHARITY NO MATTER WHO UNLESS IT IS BY PERSONAL CHOICE.
Says he who as just helped in raising £1000 for Essex Air Ambulance,my choice

[tigersaw]

They must be giving good commission, I had one at the door on a SUNDAY. Anyone who disturbs my Sunday gets a polite **** off

I said I would post any replies, because it's a public forum in the interests of fairness to Dogs Trust and Tesco, so whether or not you are interested...

Thank you for your email, and the information regarding our fundraisers today. I am a member of our Sponsor a Dog Team, and I also work with the fundraising agency that manages our face-to-face campaign, and hence your email has been passed on to me.

We rely on the fundraising organisation we work with, and their fundraisers, to represent Dogs Trust in a manner that is both professional and 'fitting to the personality of Dogs Trust'. As a charity we receive no government funding and rely 100% on supporter donations. Put simply, we cannot continue to work towards the day when all dogs can enjoy a happy life free from the threat of unnecessary destruction without the kind support we receive from members of the public, and hence the work of these individuals is vital to Dogs Trust.

We have a strict code of conduct with regards to the fundraisers who are representing Dogs Trust. These people are ‘the face of Dogs Trust’ and they may be introducing the charity to the people they meet for the first time. If we are able to identify the individual concerned, I can guarantee you that the fundraiser in question will be reprimanded accordingly. With this in mind, I would be grateful if you would be so kind as to provide me with a description of the fundraiser so that I can try to identify them. If you are able to describe the fundraiser’s height, approximate age, hair colour, attire, accent, etc, it would be very much appreciated. If you would prefer to call me to give me these details, or to discuss this matter further, please contact me on 020 7837 0006 during office hours.

We find that when handled responsibly and within the relevant guidelines we work with (http://www.pfra.org.uk/) most people are comfortable with face-to-face fundraising, and we carry out fundraising in this way because it is very successful for us. It is our largest source on new supporters and brings in funds without which we could not continue our work to help stray and abandoned dogs across the UK. Unfortunately, there is always the possibility of incidents such as this going unreported, and so I would like to thank you for taking the time to email us and let us know, so that we can hopefully stop this fundraiser acting in such a manner, and ensure that this does not happen again in the future.

I can confirm that I have escalated this to our external agency already, who will be investigating this throurougly to ensure the fundrasier is reprimanded accordingly.

Once again, please accept my apologies for the unpleasant incident you experienced, it clearly indicates the fundraiser involved does not understand what is acceptable in his role, nor what is expected of him, so thank you for giving us the opportunity to address this issue.

With Kind Regards

[Biker Biggles]

Fair dos on that.Its not the Dog Trust itself that is the problem,rather the cut throat commercialism that has overtaken all our big charities.

[timwilky]

Unfortunately it is not only this charity.

After my brother in law died of cancer we were have a drink in his local. Having gone back to his house from the hospice when a bunch of cancer charity collectors came in in their teeshirts.

I asked them to take them off as I did not want to be reminded of cancer an hour after saying goodbye to a friend. They were respectful and did. But also got me to sign a £20/month direct debit. To be honest I have no problem with this.

What does boil my p1ss is the monthly telephone call I get asking me to increase it. I appreciate costs of gone up, money is tight. But I am earning 20% less than I used to and have still kept up the payment when it would be so easy to say. Feck them, I have given more than enough. Father, uncle, father in law, brother in law, wife's right tit. and they want more!

I complained to the Red Cross about this sort of thing in the town where I work a year or so ago. Got an almost carbon-copy response.
My wife and I give a lot to various charities but the Red Cross won't get a penny more from us. In a way I feel bad because of the work that they do and it's not them who will suffer or go without, but I don't know what other action I can take. In future, I'll take a photo of the character applying pressure.

[Stingo]

I find it incredible that a salesperson of this type seems to think that they can adopt that technique in such a public environment. Everyday a schoolday...